Bird Time

In addition to pear blossoms, I also got to see a couple of cool birds last week. The first was a pair of bluebirds. Unfortunately in the photo you can't really see the blue color since I was pretty much looking at him from the front.

A split second after this photo, the bird took off in a big hurry. I wasn't sure why until I saw a hawk come swooping low overhead. Don't worry, he got away in time.

Then last Friday morning I heard an owl behind my house. I hear them from time to time, but the only other time I tried to get a photo of one it flew away as soon as I opened my back door. This time I was able to get a photo. Made me late to work, but it was worth it.

Texas Snowmageddon

Last week we had a snowstorm that was extremely surprising in its magnitude. At DFW airport, 12.5 inches of snow were recorded! Now, I know that that doesn't compare to the big snowstorms that have hit the Northeast recently, but it's pretty much unprecedented here. The previous 1 day record for snowfall in this area was 7.8 inches, and that occurred way back in 1917 or somesuch. We average about 2 inches of snowfall per winter.

Another surprising aspect of this is that even up until the night before, the forecast only called for 1-3 inches of snow. Usually when that much snow is predicted here we get nothing, so I was actually not even expecting that much. It pretty much snowed steadily for almost 24 hours straight. Despite all this, the roads were actually not too bad because the temperature was hovering right at the freezing point most of the day. The roads were pretty much just wet. In fact, I've had commutes in the rain that were worse than my Friday morning snowy commute.

It was quite the spectacle, and something that I may not see around here again in my lifetime.

This was the view from my office window as the snow was coming down.

Believe it or not this photo was taken at 10:30 PM.

Northern flicker

The view from my office the next day

Watching The Birdies

My brother-in-law is a big bird watcher, as are my mother and I, so none of us objected when he suggested a trip to a nature reserve during the Thanksgiving holiday.

There was a tree full of cedar waxwings.

A hummingbird. A black-chinned, I believe. I still can't get used to hummingbirds in fall and winter. We only have them in the summer here.

This was the only shot I got of a hawk that flew right over my head.

I watched this pelican for a while. He would dive into the water after fish and then take back off and do it over again. And again and again.

Black phoebe

I actually took this shot in my sister's back yard. It's another black-chinned, I think. There are several hummingbird species that are hard to tell apart! Oh, and notice it's raining. It was the first rain in over 5 months!

In Albuquerque

I arrived safely in Albuquerque after a flight delay of about an hour, and then my parents met me at the airport. By that time everyone was starving, so we headed out to dinner.

On the way to the restaurant my dad scared the beejesus out of us by almost causing us to get T-boned at an intersection. My parents live in Tucson, and the stoplights there are programmed to give you a turn arrow at the end of the light cycle instead of at the beginning. It's weird, and Tucson is the only place I have ever seen this. So we were waiting to turn left at a green light, and just as the light turned red my dad started to turn (as he is used to doing at home), but we didn't get an arrow. Luckily no one plowed into us and we were able to back up out of the way. At that point I decided I would do the driving for the rest of our time there, though!

The food on this trip deserves a post of its own, so look for that post later.

The next morning we went to breakfast at a restaurant in Old Town, and spent a little time walking around Old Town afterwards.

We stayed on Central Avenue, which is part of the old Route 66. This motel was nearby.

Another motel sign.

Hollyhock

Chile ristra

San Felipe de Neri Church

The plaza in Old Town

This buzzard flew over my head at the airport observation area.

This is the counterpart to the image I posted here. I can't quite figure what has changed in the foreground - it almost looks like one of the hills in the older image is gone.